


The Accident

by AmendmentF01



Series: Fit [1]
Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Callum is turning 5, F/M, Gen, Rayla is 6, They meet each other at a much younger age
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:33:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25826716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmendmentF01/pseuds/AmendmentF01
Summary: At Callum's 5th birthday party, he meets an unexpected guest.
Relationships: Callum/Rayla (The Dragon Prince), Harrow/Sarai (The Dragon Prince), Runaan/Ethari
Series: Fit [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1873957
Comments: 10
Kudos: 54





	The Accident

**Author's Note:**

> -Hi, all. I'm back! I apologize about the very long wait. Let's just say, quarantine has not been kind to me.
> 
> -This all-new series of stories is called Fit. An alternate Dragon Prince setting in which Callum and Rayla meet each other at a much younger age.
> 
> -I did my research: When Callum was 5, Ezran was almost 4 months old. Just so that's clear. You'll see later on why I mention this.
> 
> -I should note that this series is an experiment. I'm only doing this because I'm curious to see how this will be received. If people ask me to continue, I will. If people say otherwise, I won't.
> 
> -As usual, I hope you enjoy it. If the event in which you don't happens, I am going to ask that you keep any rude comments or anything of the sort to yourself. It's fine to give me constructive criticism but any comments at all that discriminate the story WILL be deleted.

Rayla was a Moonshadow Elf, not more than 6 years old. Today was among the first days of her assassin training. Today, she had to learn how to survive off the land if she were to get separated from the rest of her team.

But today, she discovered something _interesting_ , to say the least.

On her fourth hour, Rayla was at the Xadian border. As she was walking, she suddenly found loose ground that she tripped and fell into. It was dark in this place that she had entered. When she got up, she started to climb the walls back to land, but she saw that the place she fell into had a passageway that obviously led to something. She had heard about the Moonstone Path that protects Xadia from the humans, but she wasn't sure where _this_ passageway led. Could it still lead to the human kingdoms? Could it lead to somewhere that no one knew about?

Whatever it was, it aroused Rayla's curiosity.

She went through the passageway until it gave way to land. When Rayla arrived at said land, she looked behind her and saw the Xadia on the other side of the lava river. She was clearly in human territory now. A place where everyone had told her not to go. Humans were described to her as vile and power hungry and all these other insulting things to which she said "I'll believe it when I see it."

Well, she was on the human side now. No point going through that really long tunnel just to go back, she supposed.

She continued for awhile, until she stumbled across some humans. She panicked and immediately hid behind a large tree. She was very shy about mingling herself with other humans, and rightfully so, as she was taught that the humans and the elves had a proper blood feud-style rivalry. She watched over all of the humans that were there, and they looked like they were...celebrating?

A birth?  
A birth _day_?  
A get-together of some other sort?

She supposed it was a birthday, as a few moments later she heard the humans singing a song that said "happy birthday" several times.

However, she also heard a name somewhere near the end of the song. Calla? Clem? Camel? Human names were unknown to Rayla, as they were slightly different from elven ones. But the person whose birthday people were celebrating couldn't have been much less than her age, judging the way all of the attendants of the party were going about.

Rayla, still behind her tree, peeked out just a little bit, and saw the humans cheering and having fun some more a few moments later. But still, she didn't dare go to introduce herself. She wasn't going to get herself in trouble for mingling with humans.

Unfortunately, Rayla was snapped back to reality when she noticed a human with a dark jacket and a red scarf go toward her. Her face turned beet red and she tried to hide behind the tree again, but it was no use. The human boy had spotted her. But to Rayla's utter surprise, he said only one word:

"Hello!"

Callum was having a great time. This was the first birthday that he had celebrated that he was old enough to join his parents on their annual Royal Progress through the kingdom as a member of the Royal Family of Katolis.

Only a week earlier, they had seen his Aunt Amaya's mighty fortress at the Breach with rivers of lava and liquid hot magma. Now, after having come back out of the mountains, King Harrow and Queen Sarai had stopped the progress for the day to set up his birthday party in a field near a beautiful borderlands forest. He loved his cake and his presents, but something caught his eye, flitting through the trees. He went to go see what it was. To his surprise, it was a moonshadow elf, not much older than he was.

Rayla looked around, and he was the only person to go toward her. The rest didn't notice him go from the party to her tree, thankfully.

"I'm Callum. What's your name?"

She looked up at him, and widened her eyes a bit. He was giving her the most comforting smile she had ever seen. Not even her elf friends gave her that big, warm smile that this Callum was giving her.

"Don't worry. I'm not gonna hurt you." Were Callum's next words.  
  
Rayla's face was still beet red. She was also still somewhat scared of other humans detecting her presence, but nonetheless, she managed to muster the strength to get on her feet, still hiding behind the tree.

"You won't?" Rayla practically whispered.

Callum shook his head.

"I'm...I'm Rayla." She said, stuttering a bit.

"Good to meet you!" Callum said.

Rayla smiled a little bit, but then she heard someone coming toward them.

"Callum? Why aren't you with your friends?" A soft feminine voice said.

"Look!" Was his next word.

Rayla's smile immediately dissipated, and she backed away a little bit. She saw an adult human, with dark brown hair and eyes, a baby in arms, and a crown on her head. From the look of it, she looked like Callum's mother, but Rayla wasn't sure.

"A...child Moonshadow elf?" Sarai asked, her curiosity peaked.

"Wait a minute, if she's an elf..." Callum said.

"...then what's she doing here?" He finished.

"I'm not sure." Sarai said.

"What's going on here?" Said a deep masculine voice. A man then appeared. He was taller, with darker skin, dreadlocks, and looked nothing like Callum. But he wore a crown that looked exactly the same as Callum's mother. Rayla figured that they all must have been people of royalty.

"What have we here?" Harrow asked.

"A Moonshadow elf. A child at that. I'm not sure where she came from..." Answered Sarai.

After that, Sarai gave her baby to Harrow, and kneeled down to get to Rayla's height.

"It's okay, I'm not gonna hurt you. I promise."

Rayla slowly moved toward Sarai.

"I'm Sarai, the Queen of Katolis. What's your name?"

Rayla hesitated for a moment. It's one thing giving a boy who's about her age her name, but the queen of a human kingdom? Rayla wasn't sure.

"Well?" Sarai asked.

_No way around it I guess_ , she thought.

"Rayla." She said.

"Rayla...that's a pretty name." Sarai said.

"If I may ask...what are you, a Moonshadow elf girl, all alone, doing all the way out in Katolis?" Harrow asked.

"I..." Rayla stammered.

Of course, Rayla couldn't tell the humans that she was training to be an assassin. She struggled to find the right words.

"I don't know." Rayla finally mustered.

"Well, how did you get here?" Harrow persisted.

Rayla sat still for a moment next to the group of humans. But, after some thought, she somehow felt like she could trust these particular humans. So, she told them. The passageway all the way up to the present moment.

"You got to the human kingdoms through a secret passage?" Harrow raised an eyebrow.

"I don't know how I stumbled across it. I just fell in and I was curious...I should be getting home." Rayla said, facing away from the rest of the group.

"Your parents are probably looking for you." Sarai said.

"Yeah...yeah, most likely" Rayla said, quietly.

Rayla then ran and ran and ran, obviously taking small breaks when out of breath. But, she couldn't take her mind off the humans, specifically Callum and his intensely welcoming smile, that had given her such a warmer welcome than she imagined. Nonetheless, she managed to use the secret tunnel to get back to Xadia, and around nightfall, she got back home.

Runaan welcomed Rayla back to their house in the Silvergrove. "Well, Rayla, I underestimated you. I thought you'd be back by midday, not sundown. How was the surviva-"

Rayla ignored Runaan and pushed past him to her room, and closed and locked the door behind her.

"Rayla, what's wrong?" Runaan's muffled voice and the occasional knocks on the door were causing Rayla to get a little more emotional every time.

Ethari's voice then said a few muffled words. Rayla couldn't make some of it out but from the sound of it he was asking Runaan what was wrong.

"I don't know! She just pushed past me and locked the door." Runaan said.

"Rayla...when you get a chance, come out and tell us what's wrong." Ethari's calm and soothing voice caused Rayla to calm down a little bit, but not much. She wasn't looking forward to the upcoming conversation.

_**Meanwhile, in Katolis...** _

Callum went to his room. He couldn't stop thinking about Rayla...at the time, he was being cheerful, which was only justifiable. It was his birthday. But he couldn't help but think...had he done something wrong? Had he done something to provoke those feelings that he thought she felt? He couldn't stop playing and rewinding the scene in his head. He drew an unrealistic looking picture in his notebook of Rayla and him and his parents surrounding her. He then stopped when he heard:

"Earth to Callum..." Sarai was waving into his face.

How long had he been lost in thought?

"Is something wrong, Callum? It's your birthday, you should be happy! Perk up a little, huh?" Sarai said cheerfully.

"Sorry..." Callum said. "I just can't stop thinking about that elf we met. I couldn't tell what she was thinking when she was talking to us, it was so...odd."

"Well, Callum...you're probably way too young to be hearing this story." Sarai hesitantly said.

"What story?" Callum asked.

"The story. The story of why the elves and humans hate each other so much."

Sarai told him the whole story of when Xadia was one land, why elves drove the humans to the west, and so on. Callum wasn't at all pleased to hear the end of this story, mainly because he hadn't seen any untoward behavior in Rayla. But to be fair, he had never seen an elf, adult or child, before.

Callum simply said: "Okay," and nodded. He went back to his drawing.

_**In the Silvergrove...** _

Rayla kept fighting back tears, but she eventually came out to Runaan and Ethari.

"What's wrong, Rayla?" Ethari said in a comforting voice.

"It's...hard to explain." She said. Rayla was still dazed by the whole event. How the King and Queen of the kingdom didn't treat her wrongly. How no one else noticed them, and oh Gods, Callum's smile. Everything about it amazed, confused, and hurt her in a way she scarcely understood.

But Rayla mustered the courage to tell Runaan and Ethari everything.

"You met humans? You even went beyond Xadia's border?!" Runaan was just as surprised as Ethari, but Runaan took it more hardly.

"I didn't mean to meet them!" Rayla argued. "I just ran into them on accident, but they were very nice to me!"

"Humans are liars." Runaan said, angrily. "They only didn't kill you because you are a child, and they wouldn't hurt children. Just be lucky that you are one now."

"Back off her, Runaan!" Ethari said. "How would she know those things? It's not like anyone in school talks about humans much."

Runaan stopped speaking for a minute.

"I'm sorry Rayla. It's just too dangerous to be in the human kingdoms as an elf, especially as a child. Who knows what could have happened to you? I'm just...looking out for you, that's all." Runaan said.

Rayla went back into her room after that to be alone for awhile. She eventually fell asleep for the night.

_**Meanwhile, in Katolis...** _

Callum got into his bed that night, but he couldn't sleep. He still had too much on his mind from his birthday party.

He got up from his bed and started to pick up his rather unrealistic drawing again. He drew him and Rayla at the tree they were by on a new blank page.

He somehow knew that they would meet again...


End file.
